PESHAWAR, Sept 26: The law and order situation in Swat has deteriorated to such an extent that common people are poised to start ‘civil disobedience’, some residents and police officials fear.

“The killing of women and children in different parts of the Swat valley has aggravated the situation and that is why the common people have started taking out protest processions, and staging demonstrations in a state of compulsion,” a source in the local police department told this correspondent on telephone.

He said police personnel did not know as to how the situation could be controlled. Many policemen had submitted applications for premature retirement and dozens of others had abandoned their duties without any intimation to the concerned officials.

“During the past few days, thousands of people who marched on the roads and reached Nishaat Chowk in main Mingora city, clearly asked both the Taliban and security forces to leave the area and stop killing of innocent people,” the official said and added that torching of various banks, pelting police stations with stones, damaging government and private properties were live examples of the peoples’ emotions.

Some residents of Mingora, pleading anonymity, made a shocking disclosure that armed Taliban groups were seen roaming in Makan Bagh, Haji Baba road, and Navay Kaley, on the jurisdiction of Mingora police station, close to security checkposts.

They feared that if the government failed to overcome the crisis, people would be having the only option to take arms and start a ‘civil disobedience’ movement. They asked for immediate halt to the ongoing military operation. In their opinion, the military operation had so far proved fruitless as most of the Taliban commanders were neither arrested nor killed, saying that the Taliban had further increased their activities in the region.

It was reported that the participants of the recent processions were workers of different political and religio-political parties, who had come to the streets without any prominent leader of their parties. However, they reportedly turned violent after the police firing. The people of the region, residents said, were also very critical of their elected representatives’ role in the crisis, saying that they had shifted to safer places, leaving their workers at the mercy of the militants.

Residents said the provincial government was allegedly using delaying tactics to enforce Sharia in Malakand, which they believed was the sole solution to militancy. The people were expecting a better change with the military operation but it further multiplied their agonies. They suggested that security forces should avoid ‘indiscriminate firing’ on the population and strengthen the intelligence network to reach leading militants.

The people said that the clamping of prolonged curfews had paralysed the entire social and economical activities. The prices of food items had increased manifold, children were unable to go to schools and the residents were spending sleepless nights.

They said the business community, especially those dealing in fruit and vegetables, were the worst affected section that had paid millions of rupees to owners of the fruit orchards, but could not shift fruits to the markets due to the closure of roads.

Earlier, the locals were worried about the increasing militancy and weeping over the burning of schools, healthcare units, offices of various departments, but now they were very much concerned about their lives. After the killing of innocent people in different villages, people want to leave their localities for safer places as they see no hope for improvement in the situation.

The destruction of Amankot grid station and main gas supply line in Balagram, village link roads and checkposts has multiplied people’s problems. The power supply to half of the population in Swat and most of Shangla had already been suspended for the last over 25 days due to destruction of power towers in Charbagh, Dakorak, Topsin and other areas.

A resident of Khwazakhela said that the growing militancy had already rendered most of the people jobless and power suspension totally deprived them, particularly tailors, mechanics, wilders of their livelihood. “Rockets are landing in the residential colonies and innocent people, women and children are being killed, but no one knows whom to blame for the killings,” he added.

He said the protest processions taken by thousands of people from various villages showed that the common people were no more ready to see both military and Taliban in the valley. He said groups of people were forcefully entering houses of the people, disgraced the women and took away cash and jewellery “and if any one resists he is shot dead or kidnapped but no body knows as to who they were”.

“The common people are totally helpless before the masked men who suddenly appear, start looting and resort to firing if anyone offers resistance to them,” he said, adding that the militants were playing with lives of the people, they had started kidnapping the well-off people for ransom, saying that currently their main target was those families who had someone in the US or Europe. Many people, he said, had been kidnapped who were released on payment of ransom but they avoided talking to media or police as they had been warned to keep mum.